


There's an hotel, slightly to the left of California

by soulofaminaanima



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Gen, Hotel Oblivion, POV Klaus Hargreeves, Post-Season/Series 02, Vanya is a badass, mention of dead bodies, not comic compliant, they have to experience each other's worst nightmares - trope, they meet the Sparrows and immediately get placed in time-out by Christopher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28770339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulofaminaanima/pseuds/soulofaminaanima
Summary: As they finally get back to 2019, they don't manage an hour without getting into trouble again.  And trouble takes the shape of a floating cube that puts Klaus and the others in time-out inside their worst nightmares.Will thay be able to break free of this hold their nightmares have on them, or will Vanya tear the place down before they manage to get out?
Relationships: (past) Klaus Hargreeves/David 'Dave' Katz, The Hargreeves Family
Comments: 8
Kudos: 72





	There's an hotel, slightly to the left of California

**Author's Note:**

> I got inspired by a lot of folks on tumblr discussing Christopher's powers. I never read the comics, but I was intruiged by the idea of Hotel Oblivion and the Umbrella Academy having to experience each other's worst nightmares.

Klaus has no idea how the weird cube did it, but it got him trapped back in Vietnam.

Not the real Vietnam, Klaus knows that much, but a Vietnam where he’s locked inside a medic’s tent with Dave’s dead body. It’s a place he’s never been before– they took Dave’s shot up body away and Klaus never saw him again – but he hates it all the same.

There’s gunfire outside of their tent, going off constantly as if the fight is happening right outside. It hurts and drones through Klaus’ whole body until it becomes a never ending baseline of headaches. It mixes in with the screaming of the dead, but at this point Klaus can no longer pick out any specific sounds anymore. 

The floor of the tent is just…mud. Mud that reaches up to your ankles, Klaus only ever saw this during monsoon season and it smells just as bad. And then there’s Dave’s body, staring with wide eyes at him. Klaus could almost call it judging, except for the fact that Dave never judged him for anything.

Klaus could move to the other side of the tent to escape the dead, glassy eyes of Dave, but the moment he blinks, the body’s moved too so it’s facing him again. So he has to look at Dave again.

But the worst part, the worst part is that Dave’s ghost never shows up. There are other shadows of ghosts that flicker in and out of the tent, but never Dave. So even in his worst nightmare, he still can’t fucking see his dead boyfriend.

Fuck, he hates it here…

Klaus has no idea how long its been, measuring time is hard in this nightmare, but at one point a ghost materializes in the middle of the tent. A ghost shaped a lot like little Number Five.

Klaus stares as the ghost critically. If this is another way of the cube to psychically torment him it sure is a lame trick. Sure, a much younger Klaus feared the day the ghost of their runaway brother would show up to their house. As long as there was no ghost, Klaus could pretend Five had actually escaped their father and was living a happy life. A younger Klaus would fear seeing his dead brother, but grown-up Klaus knows Five’s still alive; his brother was there when they confronted the Sparrow Academy and that weird cube.

“Boring!” is what Klaus ends up yelling at the illusion ghost.

The fake Five blinks at him in confusion that quickly morphs into annoyance. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint. Do you want me to come back later?” he asks with a sneer.

Klaus frowns at the illusion, something’s not right. He knows the illusion of Dave’s fake because Dave would never judge him for his death – even if Klaus thinks he should. Somehow, Klaus knows this illusion isn’t an illusion either: it’s too perfect. No one could replicate that exact scowl Five wears so often. Nobody could perfectly copy the sarcasm in his brother’s voice.

Which means that… “Five! It’s really you?!”

Five doesn’t answer. He just waves his arms up and down his body, as if that should answer all Klaus’ questions. Maybe it does: Five’s still wearing the old Umbrella uniform, but it looks dirtier than Klaus remembers. His floppy hair still sits immaculate, it always stays perfect even through the teleporting and murdering his brother does all the time.

“H-How are you here? Are you here to get me out?” Klaus knows he sounds pleading. He also doesn’t fucking care.

“I’m trying.” Five answers with a strained smile. His brother does look tired, Klaus thinks. He has been looking tired ever since he fell from the sky at their father’s funeral.

“How _are_ you here anyway?” Klaus asks. Kind of personal for his brother to just barge in here; nightmares are personal. He wants to joke about it but can’t.

“Turns out our powers still work in this world.” Five answers. He’s looking around the tent with a pained smile. “The cube’s preoccupied with Vanya right now, so as long as I’m quick I can visit places outside my own personal hell.”

Klaus nods, he understands the basics of how Five’s powers work, but never the mathematics and calculations. If Five says he can jump inside somebody’s nightmare world, he apparently can. Klaus wonders what his brother means with ‘my own personal hell’, does that mean Five got trapped here too? And here Klaus was thinking he was the only idiot who got roofied by a cube.

“Is this…Vietnam?” Five asks. The gunfire still goes strong outside of the tent. There’s some shadow of a torn-up farmer standing in the right corner Five might or might not be able to see right now and then there’s Dave’s body.

“Yep.” Klaus pops the p. “Wait, what do you mean with…Vanya preoccupying that thing?” Does that mean they captured Vanya too?

“Can’t you hear it?” Five asks, “There’s a violin.”

Klaus listens to the sounds outside of the tent. He has to strain to hear it over the droning gunfire and screams. It’s only audible when you know what to listen for, but there’s the tuning of a violin ever so frail dancing around outside his tent. It comes and goes like it’s carried by the wind.

If that cube wants to keep them contained, he _really_ shouldn’t have given Vanya an instrument. That’s the same as giving Diego free knives, or handing Allison a microphone and speakers. Klaus has never taken anybody captive, but he’s pretty sure that’s not how a hostage situation works.

“So…I’m next door to Vanya’s nightmare room?” he asks. It explains why Five’s here: he’s looking for Vanya. He knows he has nothing to get them out; talking to the dead doesn’t help a lot in this situation. But Vanya’s powers are strong, surely with Five’s thinking and Vanya’s powers they can stage a breakout?

Five slowly walks around the tent, listening as if he’s checking wherever the sound of the violin’s the loudest. “It was louder at Allison’s.”

“Wait…Allison’s locked in a nightmare too?!” Klaus asks in disbelief. “What, are we literally _all_ stuck here in different torture chambers?”

Five nods and Klaus scoffs at that. “What would Allison’s nightmare room even look like,” Klaus tries to joke, “that time at the red carpet where she stumbled over her diamond dress?”

Five gives him a dark look.

“…Sorry, stupid joke.” Klaus mumbles.

“If you really want to know, it’s Jenkin’s cabin…”

Klaus curses at that. Of course Allison would have nightmares about almost getting killed in a psychopath’s cabin in the woods.

They’re both quiet for a while. Klaus sits down in another corner, trying to avoid looking at Dave’s dead and muddied face. The sound of the violin still comes and goes. It doesn’t play a specific tune, just simple tones that slowly move up and down the scales.

“Are you going to visit Vanya next?” Klaus asks. “If her music can break through our personal nightmares, maybe she can break us out of here too.” He doesn’t want to sound too hopeful, but with Vanya’s powers anything is possible. Not even their dad knew the limits of her powers. She blew up the moon! Surely she can destroy a floating cube.

Five laughs rueful. “I really want to, but here’s a small problem with that, though. I need to be able to visualise the place I want to jump to and I have no idea where that cube would lock up Vanya-”

“The bunker.” Klaus blurts out.

Five blinks. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, I guess we never talked about that. You weren’t there to see it the first time around. Not even sure if the room still exists in this universe.”

“Klaus, stop blabbing and just tell me.” Five breaks in.

“Well, in our world, dear old dad built a sound-proof bunker underneath the Academy. That’s where he locked Vanya up for a while before he created those pills to suppress her powers.”

Five frowns at that and Klaus remembers that number Five and Seven always got along pretty well when they were younger. Vanya was devastated when Five time-jumped away that first time and Five always hated it when their father made them use Vanya for practice.

“It’s…also where Luther locked her up,” Klaus continues, “right before she went ballistic and blew up the Academy and then the moon.”

At that, Five forms a soundless ‘ah’. “Describe it to me.”

“It’s a dark, colourless, empty room with weird walls that dampen the sounds inside or something. It’s the size of our bedrooms and the lights flicker a lot. Try that or an FBI interrogation office.”

Five frowns at him, but shakes his head without asking for an explanation for _that_ story. He instead focusses to make another jump through their nightmare maze. Klaus doesn’t feel any pressure to explain their trip to the FBI either. The gunfire from outside grows stronger once more and Klaus lets it wash over him; he’ll be alone again with it soon. There’s a shot up American soldier dragging his unresponsive lower body through the mud next to Five. Dave still lies unresponsive in the middle of the room, staring.

“Klaus… Klaus, Klaus!” Five has been repeating his name, Klaus does not for how long, but he finally snaps out of his dissociation. Five’s still there, looking at him with concerned eyes. “Don’t let their games get to your head.” Five looks around the room once more with a worried look on his face. “I’ll be back for you, I promise.”

Klaus nods at him, blinking away the tears in his eyes. He knows that after Five leaves, the gunfire will grow tenfold again. Dave’s body already magically turned towards him and the torn up ghost in the mud looks at him pleadingly, his hand outstretched towards him. Once Five leaves, his only distraction from this nightmare will be gone.

Five squeezes his shoulder once and then he steps back. He screws his eyes shut, probably imagining the next nightmare, and then he blinks away. And just as expected, the ghosts crawl closer again.

…

…

…

It takes forever before Klaus manages to snap out of his state of inactivity. It’s not that he doesn’t try: he listens for violin sounds over the rattling of machinery and waits for Five to zap back into his tent again. He tries very hard not to look at Dave too much and keep his head straight, but this world just has the unavoidable power to suck you into a state of despair and panic.

But finally, something happens.

It grows slow but steady: Vanya’s playing of the violin that howls around his tent like a storm. It grows stronger and stronger until it drags Klaus out of his freezing panic.

He stands up from his spot next to Dave and stares at the tent walls. There are no flaps to open it and Klaus tried crawling underneath it through the dirt but it wouldn’t budge. He could run against the fabric and it would feel like crashing into a brick wall. But now, the tent walls shake like a storm razes on outside…and it didn’t do that before.

So either the cube’s changing the nightmare room on purpose, or someone’s shaking the foundation of this place in retaliation. And since Vanya’s playing has been steadily growing stronger, Klaus has a hunch it’s the second.

He wishes he could hear whatever song Vanya’s playing, but it just sounds like distorted riffs and random long notes to him. Notes that grow in volume even stronger until they overcrowd the gunfire and drone through his head. He presses his hands over his ears, but it’s useless. It will be a miracle if he gets out of this room without permanent hearing damage.

It is then that the whole foundation around him starts breaking: the tent crashes down around him and the mud cracks and tears. Klaus tries to move away from the falling debris and the cracks in the floor, but he slips up and falls through the cracks into blackness.

…

…

…

When Klaus wakes up, he is no longer in Vietnam.

He is lying on some bed, strapped around the waist with a simple belt buckle. His room is small and grey, the only sound is the white noise of some radio coming from down a narrow hallway. The reason _why_ he’s strapped down with a buckle is because gravity seems to be working slightly different here. It’s not completely gone, just…weaker.

Klaus stands up, feeling disoriented and somehow unsure of his body. Like he took too many different drinks at once. When he takes a look outside of his new home through a small, round window, his breath stocks in his lungs.

Outside, the black night sky contrast brightly with shining stars, the ground is grey and bare of any flora. There are craters everywhere and high in the sky floats a blue and green little planet.

“Shit.” He’s on the moon.

Klaus supresses waves of panic washing over him. It makes no sense; how the fuck did he get to the moon?! He stumble away from the window and shuffles his body sideways down the hallway. The station’s weirdly cramped and even the other room isn’t very spacious: it’s just a small living room with a table, some cabinets and an old radio.

That is, until Klaus turns around to the wall behind him: one wall of the living room is just a big mirror. Klaus’ first thought is that it makes no sense to send such a big mirror up to the moon. His second thought actually falters in his head as he sees his own reflection:

His body doesn’t look like his body at all, it’s weirdly proportioned and it give him this uncanny valley effect. He’s also wearing a long green overcoat, unfitting shoes and fingerless gloves: Luther’s clothes.

The weirdest thought pops into Klaus’ head: what if he’s stuck in another nightmare room? Vietnam crashed down around him, but that doesn’t mean he actually escaped the cube’s hold. What if he just fell one floor down and landed in Luther’s nightmare room?

Klaus turns around in front of the mirror, looking critically at his body. Logically, he knows it’s his body but it sure doesn’t feel like it. Like they uploaded his conscious into the wrong head. His reflection just feels… off, like a funhouse mirror. Except that this isn’t fun at all. He just escaped his own personal hell, he doesn’t want to deal with another person’s demons on top of that! He doesn’t want to be locked on the moon!

He circles around his new prison, a small space station with barely anything but necessities: a bed, a table, a chair, the giant fucking mirror and a radio. At a first glance, it’s an upgrade from his muddy tent with nothing but a dead body, but Klaus is soon to change is mind.

There are several things grating on Klaus. Sure, this isn’t _his_ nightmare world, so maybe the psychological mindfuck shouldn’t get to him as strong as it does, but it’s still horrible.

First of all, the room seems to be pressing down on him: narrow hallways and tiny rooms, chairs creak under his weight and clothing that sits uncomfortably tight. He’s never been so aware of his body before and it becomes a never leaving thought at the back of his mind: _I don’t fit in, this place isn’t made for me._ Maybe it chafes because this nightmare isn’t tailored for his mind specifically, maybe this nightmare’s just tailored to make anyone feel like this.

Then there’s the loneliness. It sets in slowly, but it soon starts to grate on Klaus. He should be happy the ghosts are finally gone, that there are no more soldiers firing guns outside all the time. He hates it instead. It’s the isolation of not seeing another being for so long, his only connection the sneering voice of their father.

And that’s by far the worst part: the radio. It’s impossible to turn off and it only has one usable channel. And the only thing it broadcasts is their father. Their dad, droning on and on about failed missions and new reports and things he should do and live up to. Gah, Klaus tried to turn the radio off, but it won’t budge. Throwing it away or trying to break it is just as useless as a new one will just reappear once he looks away.

So it’s just him and dear old Dad droning on: “ _You failed on your last mission report, Number One. I expected better of you – Listen closely, Number One, because I’ll only explain this mission to you once – You failed again! I cannot say I expected better of you, Number One, because that would imply I had any expectations at all-”_

It’s probably what Luther deals with all the time. What he had to deal with for four years alone on the moon. Klaus still has no idea how long he has been stuck in nightmare land, but he already knows he couldn’t have listened to this for four years.

Klaus lies face down on the too small bed with the blanket that doesn’t cover his feet and tries to ignore the radio. It isn’t that he wants to go back to Vietnam, but at least there he didn’t have to listen to their fathers voice all the time. Maybe getting stuck in Vanya’s nightmare room wouldn’t be so bad? Sure, it would be just as claustrophobic as the mausoleum, but it would be quiet.

His eyelids feel droopy and all Klaus wants to do is sleep for forever and never wake up again. He understands what’s happening: the room is getting to his head again and keeping him docile. He doesn’t care; as long as he doesn’t have to listen to Dad anymore.

Instead of blissful quiet, the radio cracks on again, but this time with something new:

_“ChggggggghAllison?....Lu-chgggg-er?”_

Klaus scrambles off the bed and pushes himself through the small hallway towards the radio. There’s someone trying to contact him, someone who isn’t their father. This could just as easily be another ploy from his jailer, but Klaus still gets exited at the prospect of talking to someone.

Klaus turns on the radio until he hears the voice better: it’s Diego. He grabs the old-fashioned microphone and presses it on to answer. “I’m here! This is Klaus here!”

_“Klaus?! Klaus, where are you?”_ Diego asks.

“I’m on the moon! Inside Luther’s body, how about you?”

_“The apocalypse, staring at our dead faces. What do you mean,_ inside _Luther’s body?”_

“Ah, never mind that.” Klaus quickly answers. Maybe the others aren’t locked inside another body? Does that mean this body is part of Luther’s nightmare? He really doesn’t want to think too deeply about his brother’s personal demons. It feels too intruding.

_“Okay, listen closely Klaus, because I need you to do something for me. Five’s trying to get us out but we need to work together. Do you hear Vanya’s playing yet?”_

Klaus listens to the sounds outside of the moon base. He doesn’t hear anything, which is still a weird contrast with Vietnam. There, the world was never quiet, but here there seems to be nothing but quiet. Nothing but dad’s grating voice and the ever silent world out there…not a soul for miles and miles to find…no living thing around…just quiet…and loneliness…

_“Klaus!”_ Diego breaks in on his musing. _“Answer me, dammit! Do you hear Vanya?”_

“Yes!” Klaus repeats fast, blinking away the hold the silence has on him. “Yes, I hear her.”

And it’s true, he does hear her, but not coming from outside the station. The sound of music is mixed in with the static over the radio in his hands. Whenever Diego talks, he hears it more clearly: the coming and going of a tuning violin.

_“Yes, good. I need you to focus on that, she’s playing some musical song and it’s going to tether us together. Break the hold that cube has on us.”_

Klaus doesn’t ask how. Diego probably doesn’t know either, if this plan comes from Five. A plan coming from Five usually means he never takes the time to explain his reasonings, but a plan from Five usually also means it’ll work.

_“Focus on the music and keep thinking about how this isn’t real.”_

“Will that break this…nightmare? Like it did that last time?”

_“Hopefully.”_ Diego answers. _“Just make sure you keep hearing Vanya. We’ll be out here soon. I need to hang up now. I still need to get a hold on Luther.”_

Diego clicks off after that without saying goodbye. Klaus immediately turns the volume of his little radio to max. It amplifies Dad’s annoying instructions, but it also clears out a lot of static, so he can hear Vanya play for them.

He lies his head on the table and closes his eyes, focussing only on the things he _can_ hear in this cramped station. The more he focusses on the music, the more complicated the song sounds. First, Klaus only hears the tuning and fleeting notes like he did back in Vietnam, but then he starts to pick out an actual tune in them. The sounds swell on and soon he hears what Vanya probably intended to play for them.

And Klaus can only laugh at Diego as he recognises the piece, because of course Diego wouldn’t recognize The Phantom of the Opera. Klaus once saw the movie in one of the rehabilitation centres he used to visit in his twenties. He couldn’t tell you a lot about the plot, but the music somehow stayed with him.

Vanya plays it so well, their sister truly is a natural talent at this. There are fancy riffs and sweet transitions and whenever the song ends, Vanya starts it up from the beginning again. She never tires of it. It takes a while for Klaus to notice that, but it becomes his first and only way of measuring time: one phantom, two phantoms, three phantoms.

About four phantoms in, the music takes over the old radio completely. It finally shuts up old Reggie’s nabbing and amplifies the softer parts of the piece.

Seven phantoms in and Klaus notices he’s wearing his own properly fit shirt again. Ten phantoms in and the room doesn’t feel as claustrophobic anymore. Eleven phantoms and he’s completely Klaus again.

They’re at phantom nineteen when the walls start shaking, just like they did in the Vietnam room, and they’re at phantom twenty-six when Five teleports inside the space station. It startles Klaus and he jumps up out of his chair.

Five looks horrible: his clothing is torn in several places, his knuckles are bloodied, his lips are blue, there’s frosting on his clothing and ice in his hair. “What the hell happened to you?!”

“That cube knows more tricks than I expected.” Five blurts hurriedly. “But everything’s fine now. Allison’s keeping him busy and we’re getting everybody out _now_.”

Five grabs him by his clothing and then – _zap –_ they’re teleporting away from the space station. When Klaus manages to open his eyes again, they’re standing in a wasteland next to Luther’s dead body. There are other corpses too, their empty eyes tracking them like Dave’s had done. The air tastes like iron and dust. Diego, covered in soot and blood and bruises, stumbles towards them and before Klaus can recover from his first jump, Five has grabbed them both and they’re jumping again.

_Zap_

They jump straight to Jenkin’s freaking cabin in the woods where Luther stands in the middle of the room, his throat covered in blood and there’s a small girl holding a violin and yelling at all of them. It isn’t Vanya, no, this girl looks a lot more like a young Allison with a slightly lighter complexion: Claire. The fact that she yells at them for leaving their family and being a bad mom is a pretty good indication too. Luther holds onto Diego with bloodied hands and then they’re off again.

_Zap_

When they re-emerge, they’re underwater this time. Klaus would really like to throw up from teleportation sickness by now, but he can’t. The tank’s too crowded with all of them in it and Klaus can hear muffled yelling from above them: their dad’s leaning over them from some platform, yelling abuse like he always did when they were younger. Allison grabs onto his hand and right before they jump away again, Klaus looks down at the bottom of the tank: two bodies, Mum and Diego’s detective friend, stare helplessly at them.

_Zap_

The next room they crash in is still filled with water, but this time it’s not as deep as in Diego’s nightmare room. It’s the bunker beneath the Academy, filled with two inches of water. The space is dead silent, the only thing Klaus can hear is his own erratically beating heart.

And then there’s Vanya.

She’s standing bare feet in the middle of the room, her clothes look like they did back in the sixties, with the only addition being some weird leather belt strapped around her head. The only other thing in the room is a bathtub in the corner. Klaus can see that the water inside is red, but he’s too scared to get closer to see if there’s an actual body inside or not.

Vanya isn’t actually holding a violin, but she’s clearly playing something. She holds her hands and arms in the familiar pose and her fingers dance up and down through the air. There’s no music, no sound _at all_ in this space and it grates on Klaus. He takes back his wish to be locked here instead of Luther’s place; the silence is deafening and already making him feel paranoid. Vanya has her eyes closed in concentration, so she can’t actually see it when Allison approaches her.

She startles when Allison touches her and Klaus can see her eyes are white again. Both women recoil back from the other, but the sisters recover fast and step towards the others so they’re all standing in a circle. Five mouths something, still no sound. Klaus imagines it’s something along the line’s of ‘we’re getting out of here’, or ‘brace yourself’, or ‘the first one to throw up on me is getting their ass kicked’.

This will be the third time they hold each other so they can escape to another time and place. A psychologist could probably name what type of trauma keeps them from holding hands except for life or death threatening situations. Klaus just holds his siblings close and hopes this jump will get them out of this hotel of nightmares at last.

_Zap…_


End file.
